Mercedes and LadderChat

We were approached by Mercedes-Benz Fortitude Valley (Brisbane, Queensland Australia) after one of their staff members experienced our customer notification at one of our Sydney based cafes while they were on leave. The staff member enjoyed the additional service and support LadderChat offered through the cafe and wanted to find out if our customer wait list notification platform could assist with managing customers during peak periods.

What is LadderChat?

LadderChat is a cloud app for busy businesses to track and notify their waiting customers. LadderChat will update customers on their position in the queue and capture the customers information. Businesses have experienced up to 90% improvement in customer experience as well as 60% increase in customer retention. As a startup, we’re always looking for ways to improve our product and solve the pain of waiting for service.

Why does Mercedes require a customer wait list platform? We learnt that all well-established businesses across all industries go through peak periods and require additional support managing their waiting customers. Mercedes found customers were waiting to speak with sales staff and test drive vehicles during peak periods (i.e. weekends). Previously, their customers were being serviced in the wrong order resulting in upset customers and loss of business. There was also difficulty in finding customers that were exploring the showroom and customers leaving the dealership due to having long periods wait for a sales staff.

Why a car dealership requires a customer wait list platform:

Majority of customers visit Mercedes-Benz during weekend service.

Sales staff are busy servicing customers resulting in long wait periods for new customers after consultation and service.

Customers are unwilling to wait long periods due to other weekend commitments.

How did LadderChat help?

LadderChat tracked waiting customers, engaged waiting customers with updates on progression of service. Customer experience is improved due to notifications and communication. This increased customer retention by up to 60% and customer satisfaction by up to 90% – surveying customers after experiencing LadderChat at various businesses.

LadderChat recorded ‘quick info’ information such as ‘sedan’ to provide sales team with immediate context. ‘Quick Info’ is only visible to the sales team. This creates a better waiting experience for all customers.

What did Mercedes teach us?

Multi-industry:
We learnt that regardless of business, industry or location – businesses get busy and require help managing waiting customers. Customers have limited patience and may or may not return to the business resulting in loss of profit.

Use Cases:
We also learnt that although managing waiting customers is consistent throughout all industries, the pain points and use cases vary from industry to industry. Customers at car dealerships are paying comparatively more than those going for breakfast at a busy cafe. However the loss of business is detrimental. It taught us that we needed to outline specific case studies for each industry that LadderChat operates resulting in greater understanding of our product.

Product requirements:
We also learnt that big brands like Mercedes required specific features such as white label branding keeping all customer notifications consistent with their brand. We removed our branding and added ‘Mercedes’ to all correspondence sent to the customer.

Our product is simple, yet is the first touch point for your business and your customer. Mercedes taught us the requirements of big brands. Using automated notifications, we kept customer engagement high, reduced staff stress and improved customer experience. Try LadderChat.

LadderChat is now across a number of industries including food & beverage, automotive, healthcare and used at marketing exhibitions. We’re genuinely passionate about solving the waiting pain – contact us if you have any feedback or know any businesses that we could help – info@ladderchat.com